Wrong Night

By R.S.

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY Directed by Robert Klane Screenplay by Barry Armyan Bernstein

This film offers what its makers fondly believe to be amusing slices of disco life on a typical weekend evening: underage teeny-boppers trying to sneak in so they can win the dance contest; a middle-class housewife trying to get her accountant husband to loosen up a little; a singer looking for her big break; the deejay in his glass booth worrying that the Commodores' instruments won't arrive in time for their live broadcast performance; the joint's owner looking for a lady on whom to exercise his distinctly resistible charms for a one-night stand; various other stud: looking for the action; various sweeties looking for the same.

The trouble is that the slices are cut thinner than a bargain LP. They are really just slivers or, more properly, shaving of the sort that pile up beneath an ineptly managed saw. Ill-assorted, illarranged, they seem simply to have been swept up and deposited at random beween the songs in a film that cannot really be said to have been written or directed at anything like a professional evel.

Whenever Robert Klane gets a good musical number going, he cuts to one of these primitive, predictably developed stories. Whenever one of them threatens to become mildly interesting, he zooms back to the music. The result is a movie that, with much false cheer, provides nothing for everybody, though several performers do manage to make an impression despite the clutter. Outstanding among them are Donna Summer, who is effective when, as the aspiring singer, she seizes her musical moment; Chick Vennera as a character who lives only to dance and who, if someone had actually bothered to choreograph his big number, might have been even better; and Andrea Howard, who gives a touching performance as the housewife looking for kicks.

Otherwise, one cannot help thinking this richly publicized picture would never have been heard of if Saturday Night Fever had not hit it big. But Friday is no Saturday, and it is not just John Travolta who is missing. It is a whole feeling for the subject, and the basic skills required to communicate that feeling.

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